On the evening of April 5, 1997, 43-year-old grocer Tommy Vanhoose was shot four times inside Comeaux’s Grocery in Bridge City and bled to death after a masked man demanded money. Witnesses said the gunman fled, discarded a ski mask and shirt, and jumped into the passenger side of a waiting car.

Two 17-year-olds, Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes, were arrested in the case. A key inconsistency noted at trial involved the getaway car: witnesses described an open passenger window for the suspect to dive through, but the vehicle Matthews and Hayes were in reportedly had a broken, sealed passenger window. Hayes later confessed after a lengthy interrogation, and both teens were charged; Matthews was convicted and sentenced to death.

Years later DNA testing on the ski mask excluded Matthews and matched a man named Rondell Love, who was serving a manslaughter sentence for a separate killing. Inmates said Love had bragged about killing the Bridge City grocer. That DNA evidence led to Matthews being exonerated and released after five years, but the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s office did not charge Love, and Travis Hayes continued to serve a life sentence; appeals and disputes over his conviction remained.

Did anyone in the community have contact with Vanhoose the night before his death or recall unusual activity around Comeaux’s Grocery?